| Something amazing has happened - I am posting two days in a row! Thanks to this nasty polar vortex we have had school called off for two consecutive days. It has given me a chance to revisit the blog and my blogging friends. I am happy to hook up with Holly at Fourth Grade Flipper for her Tried It Tuesday Linky!  Every year when we work on measurement in math I ask my students to bring in cans for weighing. The students are eager to be a part of this, and we usually get 2-3 cans per day for about 3 weeks. Sometimes I just ask if I have any volunteers to bring them in for the next day, and those students will write a note in their assignment notebooks.  |
| The sign from my math focus wall. |
Each day we make predictions about the cans, and whether they will weigh more than a pound, less than a pound, or equal to a pound.
The kids get better at making accurate measurements each day.
Then we weigh the cans on this scale that I got years ago from Lakeshore Learning.
It's a great scale because it includes both customary and metric measurement units.
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| Very easy to use! After weighing the cans to see the actual measurement, we store them on one of these labeled shoe box tops. These could be way fancier, but they do the trick. |
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| Most of the time we get stacks of cans in each box. |
The students are very secretive when they bring the cans in - once they are familiar with the fact that 16 oz. is equal to a pound.
They read the labels and know how much their can weighs.
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| Once a boy brought in a can of peaches that was "restaurant size"! The most important part about this project is that we donate the cans to our local food pantry. I deliver the cans to the food pantry, and we usually get a thank you letter back addressed to the class. Before donating the cans, I've also used them for a class store when learning about coins and money. We've also used them in lessons on reading food labels and looking for fat content. Very enlightening for the students! I also wanted to give you the heads up about something creative coming soon! Come back to my blog next week for something to do with this: |
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| It's going to be inspiring! OMG - I just heard that more schools in our area are calling off for tomorrow - unbelievable! |
Wow! You have incorporated so many skills into this activity! I bet students don't forget that there are 16 oz. in a pound now. I love that you donate the cans to the food pantry too! :)
ReplyDelete~Holly
Fourth Grade Flipper
Hey...it's Renee over at The Science School Yard . Mrs. Laffin and I are attending
ReplyDeletehttp://www.eventbrite.com/o/oshkosh-edcamp-2143064169?utm_source=eb_email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=order_confirm&utm_term=orgname&ref=eemailordconf which is an EdCamp in Oshkosh. I wanted to send you an email, but I couldn't connect with your email address. Wondering if you are free to attend and meet up with fellow bloggers?
Renee